Growth on the Belgian broadband market is accelerating, helped by the roll-out of new fibre services and increased internet take-up during the coronavirus pandemic, research by Telecompaper shows. While Orange continues to gain the most new subscribers, its growth is slowing and it remains much smaller than market leaders Proximus and Telenet. The focus in 2021 will be on who wins the long-running battle to acquire the fourth-largest operator Voo.
The number of broadband subscribers rose by 2.8 percent year-on-year to almost 4.7 million at the end of September, according to the latest edition of Telecompaper’s quarterly report Belgian Total Communications Market. Subscriber growth accelerated in Q3 to 42,000 net additions in the three months, likely helped by more people working and learning from home during the coronavirus pandemic.
Broadband revenues rose 4.4 percent year-on-year to EUR 424 million. Broadband is the main growth driver on the Belgian telecom market, which posted total revenues down 0.5 percent in Q3 2020 due to lower revenue from mobile services and fixed telephony. All the big operators added new internet customers in the past year and quarter, suggesting the last households without broadband are finally signing up.
Orange is adding the most new subscribers, with over 31 percent growth on an annual basis to 303,000 broadband customers at the end of Q3 2020. Orange’s growth is driven by its attractive Love packages bundled with mobile services, but the heavy discounts mean its revenue is growing much more slowly.
Proximus leads revenue growth as fibre advances
Proximus remains the biggest broadband provider with just over 2 million subscribers. All its growth appears to be coming from the FTTH market, where Proximus kicked off an accelerated roll-out in 2020, as the number of DSL subscribers in Belgium is falling steadily over the past four quarters. The increased focus on fibre and pricing changes helped Proximus show the strongest revenue growth in broadband, up 8 percent to EUR 201 million in Q3 2020.
"Proximus’s growth is set to continue, as its new Flex plans appear to be well-received and it just raised prices on older plans," said Marion ter Welle, Telecompaper senior research analyst and co-author of the Belgian report. "With Orange’s growth slowing and its market share still tiny, the company will likely put all its effort this year into winning the long-running battle to acquire Voo."
Voo key to changing market dynamic
A successful court appeal by Orange in June 2020 forced the public shareholders of Voo to re-open bidding for the company. The Telecompaper figures show a merger of Orange Belgium and the regional cable operator Voo would still leave the companies much smaller than Proximus and Telenet. In terms of subscribers, the merged company would hold 17 percent of the market, while its revenue share would be only 11 percent. An acquisition of Voo by Telenet would change the market dynamic more, vaulting Telenet into first place in both revenues and subscribers, ahead of Proximus.
